By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
City of Martensville councillors passed a motion during their August 19 meeting to approve the draft audited financial statements for the year ending Dec. 31, 2024.
The draft statements were presented by Landon Grubb of BDO Canada LLP, the firm conducting the audit on behalf of the City of Martensville for the first time this year.
Grubb’s presentation mostly concerned the role of the auditor, stressing that the financial statements and the numbers contained within are management’s responsibility.
“The only thing that’s the auditor’s is the audit opinion that will go at the front of the financial statements,” Grubb said.
With that in mind, he said the auditor does have some responsibilities in terms of presenting signficant findings to city council and identifying and assessing the potential risks of fraud. To that end, he also outlined some of the procedures they use to identify the risks of material misstatement due to fraud.
“Throughout our testing and throughout the course of audit, we have not come across any actual or suspected issues related to fraud,” Grubb noted.
According to the actual statements, the city took in a total of $23.821 million in revenue throughout 2024, a difference of $1.437 million over what was budgeted for the year.
Though tax revenue was slightly below what the city expected, Martensville took in nearly $900,000 more than expected in fees and charges and double the amount of expected invested income.
Expenses came in at $24.225 million, a difference of more than $1.2 million over what was budgeted for 2024.
Most expenses for individual departments were in line with what the city had budgeted except for recreation and cultural services, as the city had budgeted $6.214 million and ended up spending $6.951 million, a difference of over $700,000.
The city’s expectations for recreation and cultural services wages, professional services, utilities and maintenance were all out of line with what the city had budgeted for 2024.
That said, Martensville had originally budgeted for an operating deficit of $633,502 and finished up with a deficit of $404,235. That deficit was also immediately erased when accounting for provincial and federal grants, which came out to $11.794 million.
Notably, the city had budgeted to receive $14.426 million in government grants, so the annual surplus of revenue over expenses ended up being $11.39 million instead of the budgeted $13.793 million.
Cash and cash equivalents for the City of Martensville also grew from $12.629 million at the beginning of the year to $15.016 million by the end of 2024.